With a total of 310 votes, the split was as follows: 43% think smartphone use when hanging out is only okay if you’re involving everyone (like finding a new venue to try); 32% of people are simply annoyed at smartphone use at gatherings, regardless of the reason; 25% readers have no problem with smartphone use while you’re hanging out. That’s 75% of people unimpressed if you get your smartphone out for a purpose that doesn’t involve everyone.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

So, remember when you get your phone out at social gatherings, you’d best be doing something useful with it that involves everyone or you’re likely to annoy almost everyone!

You probably use several IM chat services, maybe using a client like Trillian or Meebo to handle them all at once. But, if you could get all of your friends to contact you on just one of these services, which one would it be? Facebook? Skype? MSN?

I am a big fan of Instant Bird. Instant Bird is a mutli-protocol messenger that is compatible with most popular protocols by default. Instant Bird is very similar to 'Pidgin', yet lighter on resources.

I would enjoy Trillian more if the development team were more competent. They release builds of the messenger without testing for errors (See: Alpha & Beta).

Google talk is simply the best. Once my connection was acting cranky, even Google took full 52 seconds to load (it usually takes less than a second or 0.5 second). But Google talk worked fine, and I was able to chat with a friend and spend my time till normal conditions prevailed once more. Anyway, Google talk does everything (logging in, showing gmail notifications et al) in the background, others need ur interference. And anything Google is just the best (according to me, till now - except Wave for lack of ppl online).

You idiots, this isn't a question about which client is the best (by the way, Pidgin is the better than Trillian) but which SERVICE. Google Talk, Facebook chat, AIM, Skype et. al. Don't be dumb. Read next time.

I chose AIM. I do not really know which is better, because I use ALL of them but they are ALL linked so I can chat with FB friends, AIM buddies, Google/GChat buddies, Yahoo buddies, using ONE interface: in my AIM chat. I think I may have downloaded Trillian for that but the interface shows up as an AIM interface.

When people expect me to talk to them on AIM or Facebook chat, in between face punches I tell them all the benefits of using Google Talk. After I'm done giving them a good what-for, I do it again. Using AIM is aiding and abetting internet cancer.